However, the Kingston Daily Freeman writes that Gibson will serve out his term, and will just announce that he will not seek another term.

From the Roll Call report:

“Rep. Chris Gibson, R-N.Y., will announce his retirement Tuesday, according to two GOP sources. [...] Last year, Gibson annihilated venture capitalist Sean Eldridge, the Democratic nominee with deep pockets, by nearly 30 points. Initially, Democrats were optimistic about defeating Gibson in the lush and rolling Hudson Valley-based district north of New York City. But Eldridge’s candidacy quickly flamed out, and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee never reserved airtime in the 19th District to support his campaign.”

November 19, 2014

Absentee ballot counting in the closely-watched 106th Assembly race between Democrat Didi Barrett and Republican Michael Kelsey is inching along. So far, Barrett has been steadily increasing her narrow 137-vote lead from Election Night.

Going into the absentee count, Barrett trailed “on the machines” by a small amount in Columbia County, but made up those votes and then some in more populous Dutchess County.

However (as expected by most seasoned election observers) Barrett has made up ground in Columbia County in the 11 districts counted so far. In those districts (which include Ancram, Clermont, Copake, Claverack, and Taghkanic), Barrett has picked up another 107 votes, according to estimates provide by an observer of the counting process.

Moreover, Barrett has won 9 out of the 11 districts counted so far, with Kelsey only squeaking out 1-vote victories in two districts.

Ballots reportedly are being closely scrutinized, and in some cases challenged, by the candidates’ representatives. Roughly a third of the nearly 1,000 absentee ballots pending in Columbia have been opened. A similar number are outstanding in Dutchess, but results are not known.

Generally, one would expect that if Barrett is improving in Columbia, her weaker territory on Election Night, she would also improve in Dutchess, meaning that Kelsey’s hopes are fading.

May 14, 2014

The February 14th, 2014 minutes of the Columbia County Industrial Development Agency reveal that the County intends to make a “land donation” of approximately 33 acres to Ginsberg’s Foods.

Former Claverack Planning Board member (and Churchtown firefighter) Nathan Chess dropped that bombshell research at tonight’s joint meeting with the Ghent and Claverack planners, as part of a a scheduled public hearing.

The gift presumably is dependent upon approval of the company’s application for a new 300,000 refrigerated warehouse, office space and trucking center on Route 66, just north of the intersection with 9H on the Ghent/Claverack line.

The IDA minutes found by Chess state that the County’s Economic Development Council (CEDC) “continued to negotiate with Ginsberg’s about the land contract.” The 2014 head of CEDC is David Crawford, the principal of Crawford Engineering—the same firm which is spearheading Ginsberg’s application before the two Planning Boards. David Ginsberg himself was listed as a member of CEDC as recently as its September 2013 meeting.

Mr. Chess further noted that the company appears to be operating under two names, G. Best Realty and Ginsberg’s Institutional Foods, per a letter from County economic development czar Kenneth Flood authorizing the company to pursue an application for a project on County-owned land. Mr. Ginsberg was in charge of the candidate search which eventually hired Flood, according to sources familiar with the hiring process.

Sardonically referring to himself as “an investor” in Ginsberg’s—as a County taxpayer—Chess further noted that the IDA’s December 3rd, 2013 minutes discussed giving the company a $30,000 “mortgage tax exemption” in relation to its Payment In Lieu of Tax (PILOT) deal for its existing, smaller facility further west on 66.

The public hearing was marked by an unusual number of interruptions and admonishments of public commenters by Ghent Planning Board chair Jonathan Walters, (who serves as an editor and writer at Governing magazine). Walters warned those wishing to speak not to repeat others’ comments, and made numerous interjections during various attempts by citizens to enter questions and comments into the record.

Resident Donna Davey was among those cut off by Walters, when she attempted to express concerns about “sprawl.” During the remarks of others, such as Mr. Chess, the hearing officer made eye and hand gestures indicating he wanted the speaker to hurry up or abandon certain lines of argument.

By contrast, officials such as Columbia County Chamber head David Colby and former Claverack Supervisor Jim Keegan, along with employees of Ginsberg’s who spoke in favor of the application, were allowed to speak uninterrupted. A supportive letter from County Supervisors chair Pat Grattan was read aloud by Brandee Nelson of Crawford Engineering, again without interruption.

Meanwhile, concerned neighbor Tom Runyon was lectured to “read the application” before the next time he offered comments, even though Runyon’s softspoken questions reflected an obvious familiarity with key details of the application.

Runyon pointed out that the two Boards had proceeded with a public hearing despite not having voted to deem the Ginsberg’s application complete, a normal procedural hurdle. Joint attorney for the two boards, Jeffrey S. Baker, argued that the application was “substantially” complete, conceding that some environmental formalities remained to be formally adopted.

Walters appeared impatient with what he characterized as Runyon’s “procedural” comments, and urged him to focus instead on the meat of the application. But Runyon was again shot down when he quizzed the Boards and their joint attorney about such particulars. He noted, for example, that the application was for a “warehouse,” but also included other components such as an 85-bay trucking operation. Board members and Ginsberg’s reps claimed that the trucking component was for “repairs,” though other discussion clearly indicated that the trucks would be loading food in and out of the facility.

Runyon’s concern about emissions from the 85-odd vehicles running “all night” appeared to be deemed more germane by several on the two Boards.

Runyon, along with Ghent resident Patti Matheney and others further managed to tease out information that the water tower proposal for the property was a “County project,” which apparently would be paid for by the County, not Ginsberg’s. Though the proposed water tower was a frequent topic of discussion at the meeting, it does not appear to be mentioned in the public notice for the project.

The often hostile back-and-forths with audience members struck this observer as highly unusual, given that Planning Boards serve in a “quasi-judicial” capacity—with an obligation to not render an opinion until all input, including public comment, is received.

At dozens of similar hearings attended over the years, this attendee has seen members of a diverse set of municipalities and agencies take input on a wide variety of topics, without attempting to divert or derail the commenter’s line of thought. Members typically do not interact with commenters during a formal public hearing, of which a transcript is supposed to be made, answering only the simplest procedural and factual questions when these can be addressed succinctly and without tainting the proceedings with any appearance of bias.

Issues and other comments raised by commenters are more usually addressed later in a reply document, which sorts out new substantive issues from those already addressed in the course of the review, and setting aside those not germane to the process. Such reticence helps preserve the appearance of a Board not rendering objective judgements free of premature, arbitrary or capricious decisions.

May 11, 2014

In the wake of his latest public relations debacle in April, Sean Eldridge’s Congressional campaign put out a call for applicants to serve as an “experienced, energetic Communications Director to manage the campaign's day-to-day operations of press strategy.”

The development led to yet another satirical blast from Republicans. The GOP seized this as a fresh opportunity to highlight Eldridge’s lack of experience in running for public office, his lack of roots in the district, his overabundance of money to spend on his campaign. and other now-familiar talking points.

Leading the charge was the NRCC’s Ian Prior (himself a former Congressional campaign manager) , who drafted a fake application for the job. Prior used the tongue-in-cheek letter to highlight the GOP’s preferred bullet items: that Eldridge is his own largest campaign donor, that he’s allegedly Hudson River Ventures to curry favor in the district, that he’s bought expensive houses in different districts to “shop” for a winnable race, etc.

Gibson’s people seem to understand that in non-Presidential election cycles, these one-liners are useful (whether fair or not) for motivating the Republican base to turn out—and for helping to dampen Democratic enthusiasm.

Even some Democrats who would like to see the party regain control of the house have grumbled that Eldridge’s missteps are playing into Republican hands, as image and media issues allow Gibson to avoid discussion of votes which might put him out of step with the NY-19 electorate.

One p.r. problem leads to another, as even more balanced articles such as this recent Freeman report consistently highlight Republican accusations about carpetbagging and campaign finance before glancingly addressing the issues at stake.

Eldridge’s challenge now is to undo the Al Gore-ing of his campaign, even as the opposition tries to make his infinity pool into the regional equivalent of 2000’s unfair “I invented the Internet” tag on the then-Vice President.

Meanwhile, though the ad for a new Communications Director is now nearly a month old, recent press releases on Eldridge’s site continue to list the same outside p.r. rep, Morgan Hook of SDK Knickerbocker, as his primary press contact. (The Knickebocker Albany office lists only one other key staffer other than Hook, whereas its New York City office lists 20 Managing Directors, Vice Presidents and Associates.)

So while Eldridge may be belatedly realizing—less than six months from Election Day—that his campaign needs to speak more for itself, and more freely, the intended course-correction appears, like the rest of his campaign, to be a work in progress.

November 14, 2012

Assembly candidate Cheryl Roberts has finally conceded the 107th State Assembly race to Steve McLaughin, according to the Troy Record. Roberts’ grudging concession comes a week after McLaughlin declared victory on election night.

In the Record article, a McLaughlin campaign spokesman barely conceals his annoyance with Roberts’ lack of grace in defeat:

“It was very clear on election night that Assemblyman McLaughlin won re-election and was given the honor to serve another term in the state assembly... There was certainly no need to drag this out an additional six days when the obvious had already been stated when Steve had won by a margin far exceeding any need for a recount.”

Roberts had previously insisted that all absentee ballots be counted before she acknowledge the result, though numbers gathered from various Boards of Elections by this site a week ago made it obvious that the challenger had virtually no chance to catch up. The challenger would have had to garner almost 4 out of every 5 absentee ballot filed, even though 3 out of 4 of those ballots came from Rensselaer County, where McLaughlin won handily on the machine.

Roberts was cited for circulating dishonest literature against McLaughlin by the League of Women voters’ non-partisan Fair Campaign Practices organization. She campaigned as an environmental champion, despite having advocated one-sidedly for the interests of Swiss industrial polluter Holcim and notorious Connecticut construction firm O&G Industries over thousands of citizen concerns about the future of Hudson’s South Bay.

Nevertheless, Columbia County Democratic officials cynically promoted Roberts’ green bona fides using the (now-disproven) rationale that “she can win”—the same reason given for the party’s switch of its allegiance from progressive Congressional candidate Joel Tyner to CIA lawyer Julian Schreibman. Roberts reportedly wasted more than $100,000 in campaign funding from the Democratic Assembly Campaign Committee, while Schreibman ran through $1 million on his race, not counting expenditures by outside groups.

November 7, 2012

In the 107th Assembly District race, GOP incumbent Steve McLaughlin declared victory late Tuesday night, with results (as reported by three County Boards of Elections) showing him ahead by 2,282 votes.

However, challenger Cheryl Roberts refused to concede, based on some theoretical possibility that absentee ballots could alter the outcome. But could they, really? Basic math suggests a reversal in her favor is extremely unlikely.

Calls to area Boards of Elections indicate that the number of absentee ballots issued to voters for this race totals about 4,600. So far, approximately 3,900 of those have been returned. If postmarked by election day, some additional ballots may be received. Generously, maybe 4,150 will come back. Of those, a few ballots will be deemed invalid for some technical reason, while other voters will be found to have skipped over the 107th Assembly race—or have written someone else in. Reasonably and for argument’s sake, let’s estimate that there a total of 4,000 more votes will be counted toward this race.

So does Roberts have a shot? With McLaughlin already ahead by 2,282, the raw numbers suggest her remaining chances are a longshot at best.

Years ago while handling a similar dispute for a Hudson candidate, I devised the simple formula pictured above for quickly computing how many votes a candidate who is behind in an election needs to get from the remaining voters to come from behind to win.

By that basic math, Roberts would have to get 3,141 of those 4,000 absentee ballots just to tie McLaughlin—3,142 to win. McLaughlin would have to garner only 858 of the 4,000 absentees to lose.

In other words, 78%.5 of all the absentee ballots would have to break for Roberts, and only 21.5% to McLaughlin. By contrast, the machine votes broke 52%-48% for McLaughlin.

In other words, Roberts would have to increase her tally +30% among absentee voters than among Election Day voters just to make this close. In my experience of contested absentee ballot races, the ballots generally follow the same pattern as the rest of voters, and even when they deviate, they rarely if ever deviate more than 5-10% from the “machine” votes.

Furthermore, the demographics of those absentee ballots also do not favor Roberts (whose chances were diminished during the campaign when she was cited for dishonest campaign literature by the non-partisan Fair Campaign Practices organization). 73% of the absentee ballots received so far come from Rensselaer County, which McLaughlin won easily by about 7.5%; whereas only 24% of the absentees come from Columbia, which Roberts won by a similar margin. Washington County was a dead heat, and only a handful of absentees will come from there in any case.

In other words, for Roberts to win she’d not only have to do significantly better than on Election Day, she’d have to do so in the less-friendly territory of Rensselaer County. While the general perception is that in Columbia County, absentees come more heavily from liberal weekenders than from longtime Republican residents, as one moves northward a higher percentage of the absentees emanate from nursing homes and more conservative retirees.

It thus would be remarkable, verging on highly improblable, for McLaughlin’s margin not to hold up. But that may not prevent Roberts’ more rabid partisans from mounting a long, exhausting and expensive ballot fight.

July 13, 2012

Former New York State Assemblyman and gubernatorial hopeful Patrick R. Manning filed petitions yesterday to compete in a crowded Republican primary for the 105th District seat, which covers most of Dutchess County.

Manning, a Vassar grad, previously served in the Assembly from 1995-2006, first in the 99th and then in the 103rd District, before being unseated in a GOP primary by current Dutchess County Executive Marc Molinaro.

Also seeking the GOP line are Kieran M. Lalor and Richard C. Wager. Lalor also filed for the Independence Party line. Meanwhile, Paul F. Curran filed uncontested for the Democratic and Working Families lines. Republicans outnumber Democrats in Dutchess by about 6,000 voters.

As expected, more than one Democratic candidate has filed petitions to compete in a primary for the new 107th Assembly seat, The new district covers all of Rensselaer, plus a handful of towns in Columbia and Washington.

The Register-Star only mentioned one of the candidates. The paper also missed a separate primary on the Working Families line.

Rensselaer County’s Keith Hammond and Columbia County’s Cheryl Roberts both submitted signatures to secure the Democratic line. 76% of the Democrats in the newly-mapped district live in Rensselaer County.

In addition, Roberts faces a challenge for the Working Families line from Brenda Mahar. Again, the vast majority of Working Families voters in the new 107th live in Rensselaer—90% of them.

Meanwhile quasi-incumbent Steve McLaughlin (of the former 108th) is unchallenged on the Republican, Conservative and Independence line. Republicans, Conservatives and Independence Party voters outnumber Democrats in the 107th by a 3-2 ratio.

The State Board has deemed all of these petitions valid on their face, meaning that they appear to contain more than the minimum necessary signatures to get on the ballot for the primary (where there’s more than one candidate) or the general (if the line is uncontested). Election boards in New York do not question the validity of signatures unless a citizen files a challenge to them.

July 12, 2012

Regular readers know that this site is not a big fan of the way Hudson government operates. However, on occasions when a City leader does try to do the right thing, that ought to be acknowledged without stubborn adherence to personal or partisan allegiances.

In the case of proposed changes to how Hudson handles Freedom of Information Law (FOIL) requests, Mayor Bill Hallenbeck appears in this case to be trying to do the right thing. Hallenbeck has proposed making his office the central point of contact for such requests.

That is not only a legally proper step; it’s also a long-awaited reform. Those of us who have submitted FOILs fairly often over the past decade have agitated repeatedly for this change, and it ought to be welcomed.

Now, some are understandably skeptical of the move. Such skepticism seems based less upon the particulars of FOIL or an understanding of how it plays out in practice, and more upon some general distrust of local government. The City certainly has earned that distrust, and its leaders can hardly be surprised by it. But in this rare case, the skeptics are wrongly conflating leadership concerns with legal ones. Again, this is a change that should be embraced, and here’s why:

Let’s say you wanted to get copies of public records held by the City of Hudson relating to how the 2012 budget was decided upon. 99% of the time, citizens are entitled to such documents 99%. But such records tend to be spread across multiple offices and agencies: spreadsheets in the Treasurer’s office, funding requests from department heads, emails between Aldermen and the Mayor, minutes of meetings with the Police Chief, memoranda from the State, and so on.

As it now stands in Hudson, each “agency” of the government has its own Records Access Officer, an improper and convoluted system instituted by Scalera, in part due to a previous City Clerk not wanting to serve as RAO for the whole City. Even so, most FOIL requests tend to land on the desk of City Clerk Tracy Delaney—who in my experience makes a sincere and prompt effort to respond with any documents in her office’s possession.

Yet technically under Hudson’s FUBAR system, it is not the City Clerk’s job—or anyone else’s—to coordinate responses to FOIL. And she has no particular power to compel Hudson’s many other officials, agencies, boards and departments to respond.

What then ensues under the current system (put in place by former Mayor Rick Scalera, who is no friend of FOIL) is one of two unproductive situations:

If the City Clerk doesn’t have all of the records requested in her own files, either the citizen asking for the information has to badger her to forward the request to other governmental entities, and then nag them to reply; or that citizen has to play a guessing game about where the records might exist, submitting duplicate copies of that request to every other official, agency, board, or department which might have them.

If the request is not honored, the citizen then has to appeal to multiple agencies, and potentially file multiple lawsuits to force compliance.

That’s not how FOIL is intended to work, a fact this site verified in detail with the ever-helpful and responsive Robert (Bob) Freeman of the COOG. The City of Hudson is required to have a central records access officer, for pragmatic reasons of both efficiency—reducing governmental waste—and thoroughness. Citizens shouldn’t have to play guessing games, or badger officials to respond, or blanket multiple agencies with duplicate requests. And government should not waste time and money by fragmenting and segmenting what ought to be a straightforward, efficient process of producing copies of documents for the public.

Under the proposed system, the response all document requests for the City would be coordinated by the Mayor’s office. The Mayor (or, more likely, his assistant) would distribute the request to the relevant officials, departments, agencies, etc. to make sure everyone who might hold relevant information is aware of the request. And the Mayor, unlike the Clerk, would have the clout to compel laggard or recalcitrant people in government to comply.

Now, like pretty much everything which involves human beings, any sound system can be derailed if the wrong people make the wrong decisions. If the Mayor’s office is hostile to public disclosure of documents paid for by the taxpayers, or the City Attorney is overzealous in withholding or redacting documents (as is the case currently with Cheryl Roberts), that authority obviously can be abused. The City is far too slow to respond to FOIL requests, far too eager to deny access, far too overzealous in applying the very narrow reasons allowed for withholding or redacting documents, and particularly unlikely to follow State dictates for electronic access to records.

But the current system already allows and even assists such abuse, by making citizens chase multiple agencies and officers to get at public information. The proposed reform eliminates some of the hassle and red tape, though of course it cannot remove the possibility that officials hostile to public scrutiny may still attempt to confound the law’s intent.

In short, any concerns about the proposed centralization is a political problem, whose solution is at the ballot box. Not reforming the existing methods of handling FOIL only makes it easier for abuses of the law to continue. In addition to making this policy change, the City also would do well to have a change of heart—changing its core assumption from one of “let’s figure out a way to deny this request” to “let’s figure out how to get the people public information in the most efficient efficient way possible.”

By creating a central officer, as required by State law, citizens at least can focus their attention on a single point of contact (and if necessary, a single point of appeal and litigation), rather than having to chase a disparate, moving target.

July 2, 2012

Imagine if Mitt Romney were interviewed on FOX News about his Presidential aspirations by a co-chair of the Republican National Committee. Democrats would howl that this represented blatantly biased and unethical journalism.

How can the same party which is promoting a candidate present an objective news interview of their own candidate?, Democrats would rightly ask.

Yet the progressive, Hudson-based WGXC regularly engages in a similar practice. Its nonprofit airwaves are used at times for partisan interviews of political candidates and officials with whom a host is closely alllied, and in some cases has endorsed and even is actively campaigning.

For example, County Democratic Committee vice-chair Victor Mendolia recently interviewed one of his own party’s candidates for the 107th Assembly, attorney Cheryl Roberts, on the station’s @Issue show.* (When recently asked a direct question about his then hush-hush endorsement of Roberts, Mendolia turned tail and fled in silence.)

By interviewing his own committee’s choice for Statewide office, the host not only provided his own candidate with free publicity; he also did so in a forum where that candidate could feel shielded from any serious challenge over her controversial local activities. Like Romney being interviewed by FOX, the candidate could rest assured that the interviewer would be friendly, bordering on fawning. That Roberts’ portion of the interview was barely audible did not make this episode any less contrary to basic journalism ethics.

Annotated screenshot from Cheryl Roberts’s campaign website

Predictably enough, a link to Mendolia’s softball interview was swiftly posted on Roberts’ campaign website. The post was made by an anonymous webmaster called “Columbia Dems.” Now, it’s well-known that Mendolia handles most or even all of the Columbia County Democrats’ (rather drab) web presence. In any case, he’s the only person listed in that user’s’ “circles” at Columbia Dems Google profile. Indeed, all of the posts on Roberts’ website to date have been made by the user Columbia Dems.

Professional electronic journalists should present the news with integrity and decency, avoiding real or perceived conflicts of interest...

Roberts faces a primary challenge from Keith Hammond, a former Rensselaer County legislator and town councilman, in September. Given that the bulk of the new district is in Rensselaer County or even farther north, and includes only a handful of Columbia County towns, many expect that this will be a tough contest for Roberts. The winner of the primary will in turn face one of at least two Republicans also vying for the seat.

A search of the station’s website turns up no mentions of the other three candidates besides Roberts. Of the four potential candidates for this office, WGXC thus far appears to have given only one the opportunity to be heard—the preferred candidate of the host of @Issue.

The station’s stock reply to such observations made privately by several people has been, “Well, hy don’t you do a show then?” But community radio should not have to mean that every single one of the area’s countless interests group needs to have its own separate public affairs program in order to be heard. Many groups and constituencies only have newsworthy content a few times a year. The whole point of public affairs programming is to gather that content from diverse sources, and present timely issues as they crop up, in a reasonably objective forum.

The normal and proper manner of handling such political interviews would be to assign them to a netural host who has no obvious potential conflicts, real or perceived. That independent interviewer would also quiz the other candidates as well. Among the questions that the RTDNA suggests that radio and other electronic media should ask themselves about conflicts of interest are:

Will the private actions of a journalist with a news source or newsmaker give the appearance of an unprofessional connection?

Does the subject matter of a story benefit the reporter, the manager, or the station? [...] If so, is there another source or approach for the story that would eliminate that potential conflict of interest?

Does the station have a policy on if and how employees can participate in political campaigns? [...] Public participation in political events, campaign contributions, or personal messages of support on private time have no place in the life of most journalists. Stations should develop a very specific list of what political activity is never acceptable for their journalists and other employees.

Is there a system in place to allow journalists and managers to recuse themselves from editorial decisions about stories from which a conflict of interest—real or perceived—may arise. [...] Managers should take time to consider inevitable conflicts that may arise and discuss how to deal with them before the conflict occurs.

Now, perhaps what WGXC attempts to offer isn’t journalism at all. But in the absence of such guidelines, the station would appear to be offering certain candidates friendly to one or more of its hosts free advertorials—which might even constitute campaign donations of in-kind services.

Naturally, hosts like Mendolia are free to speak their own partisan opinions. But generally such figures are media guests, not gatekeepers. Passing such opinions off as “news” or “public affairs” or “just discussion,” without full disclosure of an clear bias or at least providing balancing viewpoints, is best left to disreputable outlets like FOX.

Meanwhile, Mendolia’s cohort and CCDC chair Cyndy Hally has cynically whitewashed what she has called Roberts’ “environmental sensitivity.” Hall somehow imagines that thousands of residents will forget how Roberts repeatedly brushed aside their environmental, quality of life and economic concerns about the fate of Hudson’s South Bay.

As legal advisor to the Hudson waterfront plan (LWRP), Roberts used her position to gloss over the details of written comments from citizens, obtusely misinterpret substantive issues, and offer glib rejections of both well-researched and heartfelt concerns. Instead of being “sensitive” to local concerns, Roberts on the contrary employed slipshod reasoning, incomplete research, and pretzel legal logic to incorporate virtually all the demands of the Swiss-owned mining/cement company Holcim, and its subcontractor O&G, based in Connecticut.

Hall is well-familiar with this recent history, thus making her claim of “environmental sensitivity” all the more cynical.

*ENDNOTE: Such conflict-of-interest problems have been raised by this site in the past year with two of the station’s key personnel, both on the station and in relation to @Issue, where Mendolia also frequently interviews other candidates and allied officials on the show. When the show launched, it was co-hosted by Register-Star reporter Francesca Olsen, an attempt to somewhat temper the show’s slant; but Olsen has moved elsewhere, and Mendolia is almost always the sole interviewer. I myself have once been a reluctant guest on @Issue, though declining subsequent WGXC appearance requests due to this and other reservations about the overall enterprise.

June 27, 2012

The candidate who can take the most encouragement from the results of Tuesday’s Democratic primary was not even on the ballot.

Rep. Chris Gibson (R-Kinderhook) is looking like the only real winner of the 19th Congressional District contest, to the extent that more than 9 out of 10 Democrats showed no interest in participating in the widely-publicized vote.

In a district of nearly 150,000 registered Democrats, barely 10,000 voted. That’s a turnout of only 7%.

93% stayed home. But this did not stop Democrats such as Columbia County Chair Cyndy Hall* from spinning the dismal day as a “tremendous” ratification of the party commitee. She can at least feel marginally better than the Democratic commitees in Dutchess and Otsego counties, where party endorsements were repudiated by some 60% of Dem voters.

Across 11 counties, Schreibman’s average margin of victory against a grievously underfunded opponent was about 160 per county, with a sizeable part of his cushion coming from his home county of Ulster. In November, he will face Republican opponent who currently has roughly four times the funds in hand (see below).

Despite blanketing the district with paper and vastly outspending his opponent, nominal winner Julian Schreibman garnered only about 6,000 votes to Tyner’s 4,000. In the fall against Gibson, he now will need to find some better way to energize the other 140,000 Democrats who did not care enough to vote in the primary, and plainly were not motivated by arms-length appeals such as mass-mailers and emails.

Schreibman also faces the daunting task of winning back the progressive base of his own party. What ought to have been a friendly “let the best man win” primary that left the nominee stronger has greatly dampened enthusiasm among Democrats, as evidenced both by Tyner’s surprisingly strong showing and the low overall turnout.

In garnering 41.2% of the vote, Tyner might also take solace from the fact that he spent only about $4 per vote earned. Schreibman (not counting a flurry of late expenditures yet to be reported) spent more like $16 per vote.

Tyner earned the support of more than 2 out of 5 Democrats despite that 4-to-1 spending deficit, despite hostility from his own party’s commitees, despite being mocked by much of the press right up to primary day, despite his opponent being endorsed by the popular Maurice Hinchey, and despite enduring what increasingly sounds like a spurious last-minute campaign finance charge from within his own campaign.

At that rate of spending, Schreibman would need to spend about $1,600,000 in November to have a chance of beating Gibson. Schreibman, according to FEC disclosure reports, had about $250,000 on hand ten days before the primary. Gibson had over $1,000,000.

* It’s a good thing, meawhile, that my old pal Cyndy taught arts rather than math in the local schools, as she seems to think a 2.2-to-1 ratio is “almost 3-1.” Even most high school students learn that you round down under .5, not up.